Small Business Marketing

Small business marketing: persistence pays!

noreply@blogger.com (David Newman) — Wed, 28 Dec 2011 07:42:00 -0500

Persistent people begin their success where others end in failure.
-- Edward Eggleston

I'm trying as hard as I can, and sometimes things don't go your way, and that's the way things go.
-- Tiger Woods

Be persistent and work hard.

Will this guarantee success?

Of course not. But it certainly will increase your chances!

Success is a marathon, not a sprint. Never give up. Tom Peters believes that "success in business comes from surviving long enough to get lucky."

Small business marketing: learning into action

noreply@blogger.com (David Newman) — Wed, 21 Dec 2011 08:25:00 -0500

Leadership and learning are indispensable to each other.
-- John F. Kennedy

He who learns but does not think is lost.
-- Confucius

Never stop learning. Go back to school or read books. Get
training and acquire skills.

But never think of learning as learning for its own sake.
Take what you've learned and apply it, modify it, expand
it, develop it, share it, teach others, and boil it down to
its essence in real, concrete business terms that you can
use in your immediate environment.

In any learning situation, focus like a laser beam on
application, application, application! Learn from every
source, think, and then translate that learning into
appropriate, useful, meaningful action.

Small business marketing: How to be a better writer - FAST

noreply@blogger.com (David Newman) — Tue, 13 Dec 2011 10:12:00 -0500

Writing compelling and results-producing copy requires two skills: You must learn how to break complex items into smaller (more digestible) parts and you must be able to convince your readers to take action.

Here are guidelines that have served me (and my clients) well. I hope they're equally helpful to you.

1) The first few paragraphs of any marketing document must tell your reader what's in it for him. We don't want our reader looking up after 30 seconds and wondering, "Why am I reading this?"

2) Each marketing document (sales letter, web page, brochure) should focus on a single purpose-it should be written to stimulate a specific response. This response could be an action (take the next step in the sales process) or it could be emotional (I want them to feel worried about a particular problem).

3) Density (not length) is important. Marketing materials that stimulate interest and curiosity have lots of new and good ideas. Ideally you should introduce a new fact, figure or idea every couple of paragraphs. This stimulates interest, builds credibility and goes a long way towards ensuring that your entire piece gets read.

4) Write only about what you know.

Keep these points in mind the next time you're developing a marketing document of any type.

Small business marketing: dreaming for 2011

noreply@blogger.com (David Newman) — Wed, 7 Dec 2011 16:18:00 -0500

Dreams pass into the reality of action. From the actions stems the dream again; and this interdependence produces the highest form of living.
-- Anais Nin

Decide upon your true dreams and goals.

Write down your specific goals and develop a plan to reach them. Then look at this list frequently, update it, and keep on course.

Jesse Owens said, "We all have dreams. But in order to make dreams come into reality, it takes an awful lot of determination, dedication, self-discipline, and effort."

Dreaming, and making dreams come true, is the hardest and highest form of business.

10 Commandments of Small Business Marketing Success

noreply@blogger.com (David Newman) — Thu, 13 Oct 2011 16:54:00 -0400

Friends:

Here is a link to my radio interview last week with Elizabeth Potts Weinstein on VoiceAmerica Business:

http://thewealthspa.com/marketing/ep-61-the-ten-commandments-of-small-business-marketing-success

Listen in through the web or download it for your iPod, and check out the special offer at the 30-minute mark for a free no-strings "Get Going" Marketing consultation!

-- Small business marketing speaker David Newman

Small business marketing: Passion + Patience

noreply@blogger.com (David Newman) — Fri, 7 Oct 2011 16:39:00 -0400

This just in from my new friend Suzanne Gerety of http://www.dancestudioowner.com
===
Wine Library TV's Gary Vaynerchuck...

AWESOME

*Mature language - fyi if watching near kids or in an office.

===

So if you're a marketer... a professional speaker... an independent professional... or anyone who takes work seriously - you gotta watch this simply because Gary is talking to... YOU!!!

With Marketing Expert's New Walking Consultations, Business Dilemmas Take a Hike

noreply@blogger.com (David Newman) — Tue, 26 Jul 2011 08:50:00 -0400

With Marketing Expert's New Walking Consultations, Business Dilemmas Take a Hike

Creating subject lines that pack punch

noreply@blogger.com (David Newman) — Wed, 15 Jun 2011 15:52:00 -0400

Guest column by Karen J. Bannan

How long was the subject line in your most recent e-mail marketing campaign?

You may not realize it, but the number of characters you use can positively or negatively impact the success of your campaign, according to a new white paper released by direct marketing agency Epsilon.

The white paper, "Rethinking the Relationship Between Subject Line Length and Email Performance: A New Perspective on Subject Line Design," details some of the more important considerations that marketers should be thinking about, said Kevin Mabley, the company's senior VP-strategic services.

Here are four tips you can use to boost your subject line prowess.

1) Front-load your subject lines with the most important information.

It would seem like this tip is a given, but take a look at the messages in your inbox. As you'll soon see, it's a strategy that few marketers embrace. The biggest problem is with ordering information. If you've only got 38 to 47 characters—the average number of characters that show up in the subject line of 57% of all U.S. e-mail recipients' e-mail programs—you need to put the most important information all the way to the left.

Use urgency and relevance as your guide. Is your offer or newsletter timely? Put that right up front. Also, make sure your brand is in the first few words. However, if your company has multiple brands or categories underneath its umbrella, lead with what's most recognizable and important to your customer.

2) Keep the subject line as short as possible to convey the message.

Epsilon's research shows that shorter subject lines have higher click-through and open rates. Still, you don't want to go short for short's sake, Mabley said. Instead, you're looking to pack the most information you can into the smallest number of words.

And avoid words that have a sensationalist slant, such as "free" or "discount." "Don't just say '20% off your next purchase.' Your messages need to be rooted in your customers' expectations," Mabley said.

3) Don't forget to test.

This is another common suggestion, but one that still isn't heeded as it should be, Mabley said. "At the minimum, you should be performing an A/B test on every message that goes out," he said. "The general rule is you can test 10% of your list in order to figure out which option is a better one."

This is how you're going to figure out if your front-loaded data should be the brand name or the actual benefit to the recipient, and it's something that may change on a day-to-day and message-to-message basis, he said.

Your messages should also go through a spam filter so you know, on a scale of 1 to 100, how likely it is that an ISP will consider your message to be spam, Mabley said.

4) Dynamically personalize the subject line.

This is something that's simple to do, and shows that you know who you are e-mailing and what they are looking for. "Whether you use their first or last name or their company's name, it makes it more personal and provides better reception," Mabley said.

===

Small business marketing: do you have a fixed point of view?

noreply@blogger.com (David Newman) — Mon, 9 May 2011 11:28:00 -0400

The most fatal illusion is the settled point of view. Life is growth and motion; a fixed point of view kills anybody who has one.

-- Brooks Atkinson

Small business marketing: Battling the Email Bulge

noreply@blogger.com (David Newman) — Fri, 15 Apr 2011 06:30:00 -0400

A slimmer email can lead to healthier results in 2009...

Many people enter into the new year with a personal goal of living a healthier lifestyle and shedding the unwanted pounds brought on by another season of holiday excess. The same commitment should also be applied to the messages being sent to your subscribers-messages that may have slowly packed on the pounds right under your nose without being noticed.

How It Happened

Emails tend to start off with very streamlined designs, making them easy to use and less likely to run into display errors in different email clients. However, as marketers reach a level of comfort with email marketing, and quality content continues to be developed, more and more of that content begins to find its way into their email communications.

It can start with something as simple as a sidebar, or additional space for images. As the months go on, additional content accumulates on your email template, and soon it hardly resembles the streamlined communication vehicle it once was.

Think this might be the case with your own email? Ask yourself a few questions:

What am I trying to communicate?
Trying to communicate more than two or three main ideas in an email is difficult in light of how quickly most email recipients sift through their inboxes. Identify the one idea, if you could only choose one, that you would want recipients to take away from your email-is it the first thing you notice on your test message? If not, consider moving or eliminating excess content.

Am I overloading?
Giving visitors to your website a variety of options is fine, but an excessive number of links and linked images on an email can make it difficult and frustrating to engage with. Many marketers rely on emails to drive traffic to their sites, but the amount of clicks an email receives has much less to do with the number of available links than the relevance of those links. Also, too many links on an email increases the chances of frustrating site visitors who wait for a page to load only to realize they clicked on the wrong link in your message-an easy mistake to make with several links in close proximity.

Where can I make changes?
Some content on your emails will be non-negotiable, but be mindful of including any non-essential elements. For example, a large graphic about an event could have a negative impact if it's the first thing a recipient sees. In this case, the recipient may believe the event is the focus of the message-even if that is not the case-and could abandon the message due to lack of interest in the event. Scaling the graphic down, or simply using stylized text to promote it, would slim down the message and make sure the recipients' focus is on your products, editorial, or whatever else you consider to be the key takeaway (see #1 above).

One common email element not likely to be eliminated by any marketer is advertising space, but there is no greater contributor to a bloated-looking email than a slew of rotating banner ads. At the very least make sure clearly defined borders separate advertising from your own content, and avoid using any unnecessary images of your own, which can contribute to the cramped appearance.

Less is more

The tendency of emails to become inflated stems from marketers' desire to communicate as much information as possible with their subscribers. While this desire is perfectly understandable, it does not always take into account the user-experience of those who will be receiving the messages.

It's a good thing to have more ideas than can fit onto one email-for your subscribers' sake, try not to overload your messages. One idea on an email can still get great results, but only if your recipients can find it.

20 Tips for a positive new year for small business marketers

noreply@blogger.com (David Newman) — Tue, 5 Apr 2011 13:52:00 -0400

From positivity expert Jon Gordon...

1. Stay Positive. You can listen to the cynics and doubters and believe that success is impossible or you can know that with faith and an optimistic attitude all things are possible.

2. When you wake up in the morning complete the following statement: My purpose is_______________________.

3. Take a morning walk of gratitude. It will create a fertile mind ready for success.

4. Instead of being disappointed about where you are think optimistically about where you are going.

5. Eat breakfast like a king, lunch like a prince and dinner like a college kid with a maxed out charge card.

6. Transform adversity into success by deciding that change is not your enemy but your friend. In the challenge discover the opportunity.

7. Make a difference in the lives of others.

8. Believe that everything happens for a reason and expect good things to come out of challenging experiences.

9. Don't waste your precious energy on gossip, energy vampires, issues of the past, negative thoughts or things you cannot control. Instead invest your energy in the positive present moment.

10. Mentor someone and be mentored by someone.

11. Live with the 3 E's. Energy, Enthusiasm, Empathy.

12. Remember there's no substitute for hard work.

13. Zoom Focus. Each day when you wake up in the morning ask: "What are the three most important things I need to do today that will help me create the success I desire?" Then tune out all the distractions and focus on these actions.

14. Instead of complaining focus on solutions. It's the key to innovation.

15. Read more books than you did in 2008.

16. Learn from mistakes and let them teach you to make positive changes.

17. Focus on "Get to" vs "Have to." Each day focus on what you get to do, not what you have to do. Life is a gift not an obligation.

18. Each night before you go to bed complete the following statements:

I am thankful for __________.
Today I accomplished____________.

19. Smile and laugh more. They are natural anti-depressants.

20. Enjoy the ride. You only have one ride through life so make the most of it and enjoy it.

Optimist Creed

noreply@blogger.com (David Newman) — Thu, 3 Mar 2011 21:33:00 -0500

Promise Yourself -
To be so strong that nothing can disturb your peace of mind.
To talk health, happiness and prosperity to every person you meet.
To make all your friends feel that there is something in them.
To look at the sunny side of everything and make your optimism come true.
To think only of the best, to work only for the best and expect only the best.
To be just as enthusiastic about the success of others as you are about your own.
To forget the mistakes of the past and press on to the greater achievements of the future.
To wear a cheerful countenance at all times and give every living creature you meet a smile.
To give so much time to the improvement of yourself that you have no time to criticize others.
To be too large for worry, too noble for anger, too strong for fear, and too happy to permit the presence of trouble.

Brand vs. bland: The most cost-effective ways to market your company

noreply@blogger.com (David Newman) — Sat, 19 Feb 2011 10:40:00 -0500

Guest column by Tom Marin, Orlando Business Journal

Brand marketing is facing a power-shift in today's marketplace.

Customers want to be part of a brand's direction and development. Listening to their expectations can determine your firm's level of success.

To take full advantage of today's market share, companies will need to "lose" control of their marketing strategy to ultimately gain it, by embracing this powerful dynamic of customer expectations.

Fifty years ago, there weren't the number of brands or media choices there are today. The market is filled with brands, sub-brands, cross-brands, and strategic-brand partnerships. Add to that list the ever-increasing media choices, including Internet marketing, and it's difficult to make a minor change to a brand that will affect top-line sales significantly.

Investing in cutting-edge, no-cost and low-cost promotional tools for branding ideas will allow you to market your company profitably. Consider these suggestions for energizing your brand in today's marketplace:

• Create uniqueness.

Uniqueness is a brand's No. 1 asset. The greater the brand uniqueness, the higher its score in market share. And those brands that create a unique brand category usually become the leaders.

What comes to mind when you consider: theme park, soft drink or overnight delivery? Most likely it is Disney, Coke and FedEx. They are the recognized leaders, though there are other brands in their categories.

Your brand's uniqueness can be determined by completing this sentence: Our (brand name) is the only (product category) that (does what).

• Replace repetition with interactive promotions.

A common branding strategy is repetition of the brand message to build awareness. This strategy is not as effective as interactive promotions.

For example, a 30-day trial use, a sample pack, an on-premise presentation or a portion of the service you offer are all effective interactive strategies. They allow customers to discover the benefits of your brand and move closer to making a purchase decision than the repetitious sales pitch provides.

• Replace outbound marketing with inbound branding.

Traditional methods of outbound marketing include telemarketing, voicemail campaigns, e-mails and direct marketing. These standard marketing strategies have become less effective because people use spam-ware, caller ID, firewall devices and the "circular file" to eliminate them.

Internet searches have become a primary source for obtaining product information. Popular Web sites such as Google and Yahoo are tapping the exploding volume of today's online buyer. To increase your potential customer base, consider using these methods:

1. Publish articles on Web sites that are relevant to your target audience.

2. Write book reviews on related topics for Web sites such as Amazon.com.

3. Publicize your brand on Web sites like prnewswire.com and prweb.com.

4. Increase your online identity with listings on LinkedIn, ZoomInfo, Ziggs, Naymz and others.

• Replace monolithic marketing with customer-centric branding.

Don't be a follower. If you're trying to overtake a brand leader, don't emulate their strategies. Create your own. And let your strategy strike at the heart of what your key customers want. Of course, knowing what they want will be paramount to your success, so ask them.

• Don't plan for overnight success.

If someone offered me $10 million to help them launch a successful brand tomorrow, I'd tell them instead to give me $1 million and five years to make their brand successful. Understanding this dynamic of time, I'll bring home the bacon based on what prospective customers want.

Accepting and using this branding power-shift between you and your customer will allow you to involve their needs in your strategy and, in time, will establish your brand successfully. Their involvement offers them new reasons for becoming a loyal customer.

Cold Calling Works: You Just Do It Wrong

noreply@blogger.com (David Newman) — Thu, 3 Feb 2011 17:51:00 -0500

Guest column by Mike Schultz, RainToday.com

Brrrr... I've just been cold calling and boy could I use some hot chicken soup!

Just those two words together — cold-calling — put many people far away from warm and happy. Given that it's so much fun for so many people, and that I have heard a number of times recently that the last nail has been banged into the cold calling coffin, why is cold calling still even on our radar screens?

Because it works.

"It doesn't work," you say? Well, in one sense I agree with you: there are a million ways to do it wrong and fail. Fail at something enough, and it's easy to dismiss the whole tactic. (No matter how many times I try, I just can't hit a Jonathan Papelbon fastball. Swinging a bat at a baseball must not work!)

Before we get into how to make cold calling work, let's first establish that it does work. Of 30 possible marketing tactics for services firms, one rose to the top as the most effective in the research report Increasing Marketing Effectiveness at Professional Firms conducted by Expertise Marketing and LawMarketing.com in 2006.

The top most effective tactic--the tactic above all other tactics--was "arranging business development appointments with clients and prospects." When I last checked, the best way to arrange a business development appointment was neither telegram nor skywriting.

Meanwhile, case study after case study confirms that cold calling can work. For example, I've seen cold calling work as a major part of a lead generation approach, yielding 6 clients in 6 months (a major acceleration of client additions), and increasing the pipeline by fivefold, for Deep Customer Connections, a management consulting firm in the insurance industry.

Making Ten Million Dollars

Many anti-cold-calling folks say, "There are so many powerful ways to build your client base, why even bother trying cold calling? You can give speeches. Publish articles and books. Work your network: it's more extensive than you probably think."

To paraphrase a famous business person (Comedian Steve Martin):

Question: What's the secret to making ten million dollars?
Answer: First, start with nine million dollars.

Well, some people don't write very well, they don't have extensive networks, and speaking isn't their bag. Some people can't wait a year for a lead to materialize out of their writing or their network! If you can employ these tactics, great. It's like starting with nine million. But regardless of whether you start with nine million or no million, cold calling still works.

What's In It For Me (WIIFM)

Let's assume you're a Chief Strategy Officer at an $800 million dollar manufacturing firm in Ohio. Someone calls you and says, "My name is John Smith and I'm a change management consultant. Do you need change? Let's meet." Even if you're headed to the vending machine, your immediate change needs probably won't include John Smith.

But let's say John calls and says, "My name is John Smith. The reason I'm calling is because my firm, the ABC Consulting Group, has just recently conducted a major benchmark study on how manufacturing businesses-including Competitor 1 and Competitor 2 of yours-in the Midwest are succeeding with their labor unions in the face of global outsourcing. There are 3 practices that are working across the board and a few that fail most everyplace. If you're interested, we'd be happy to come by and take you through the results."

If this topic is on your mind, you might risk a 1/2 hour to hear the results. Or you might have some questions right then and there. Either way, if I'm John, I've presented my cold "introduction" of myself and my firm to your company in a way that delivers value to you.

Will everyone take me up on this meeting? Of course not. But if my target list is well segmented and clean, a number of prospects will. When I get in front of them, the topic of conversation will be my recent research, work, and expertise-not a "get to know you and sell you" meeting.

A conversation about recent research is just one of many potential value propositions for the meeting. (For more about value propositions for meetings, read Making Lead Generation Work for Professional Services: Secret #2.) You might not want to present research because it might not be the best entry for you. But if you're worth your salt as a professional services provider, a conversation with you should be able to offer something of strong value. (If you can't figure out how you can deliver value in a conversation, find a new line of work.)

Regardless of the meeting premise, I have to handle the conversation well to get the best result from this meeting, but the ball is definitely in my court as to what happens from here on out.

How The Numbers Work

Answer the following question: If you get 10 meetings with 10 company leaders who have the right title, are in the right organization, and have the right criteria for being a good prospect for you, and you stay in touch with them fairly regularly in a meaningful way after the meeting, how many would become clients of yours in some capacity over the next year or two?

The most common answers I get for this question are "two or three" or "eight or nine". Let's assume you're more modest, and the answer is two.

Next question: What does a bread-and-butter client represent to you in terms of revenue over the course of a year? It could be $7k, $70k, $170k, $700k, or anything. Let's assume it's $70k.

So, for the cost of setting up 10 meetings with prospects, whatever that cost is, the immediate return on your investment is $140k. This, of course, doesn't take into account long term ROI factors such as repeat business and increased referrals.

The fallacy, in many cases, is that most service providers aren't as good at closing as they think they are, and they don't continue to stay in touch with the prospect regularly and meaningfully after they meet with them. But these factors don't have anything to do with cold calling. They have to do with your ongoing marketing, and the resources you devote to follow up. The cold calling part works fine for what it's supposed to do: make an introduction with a prospective client that can lead to a good relationship. How you choose to develop that relationship is a different matter.

Have Someone Else Call For You

Maybe your practice is busy and you just don't have time to call. Or maybe your practice isn't busy, and you need to invest in generating leads. Either way, you can have someone else make the calls for you.

Even the busiest of professionals have time to meet with a CEO of a company who could be a great client for them. So you go on the meetings. What you don't have to do is make the actual calls.

Reread the WIIFM section of this article above. In the beginning, you must work to craft the lead generation process. You must be involved in targeting the right prospects, providing the strongest value proposition, and working with your telephone business developers to represent you clearly, strongly, and fairly. Then, let them go to work. Cold calling itself is not something that you, personally, need to get good at.

I could make more points that demonstrate how cold calling can work for professional service businesses, and on how to make cold calling itself work better. But for some of you who doubt the process, it still wouldn't be enough, and that's fine.

It's been said that people make decisions with their hearts and justify them with their heads. People don't want to make cold calls, and some don't want to be associated with the method. So they figure out how to justify not employing cold calling, or why other things work better.

If you don't want to make cold calls, don't. But cold calling does work. Most people just do it wrong.

For more information on cold calling and lead generation, check out:

RainToday's guide How To Set Appointments Through Cold Calling
Wellesley Hills Group's white paper Making Lead Generation Work For Professional Services
Contributing Editor John Doerr's article From Cold To Gold: Getting The Most From Cold Call Set Meetings

Mike Schultz is the Publisher of RainToday.com and an advisor to service businesses worldwide as President of the Wellesley Hills Group. He also writes the Services Insider Blog and can be reached at mschultz@raintoday.com.

Small business marketing plans: You might not want one...

noreply@blogger.com (David Newman) — Thu, 20 Jan 2011 12:38:00 -0500

Guest column by Jimmy Vee and Travis Miller

If you are a small business owner or independent sales
professional and you are working on, thinking about or
reading about creating a marketing plan - STOP!!

So many so called "marketing experts" say you need a
marketing plan and puke out all this
"direct-from-the-textbook-junk" about how to create one
and what it contains.

Traditional marketing text books and philosophies weren't
written for small businesses. They were written for big
corporations, so the irrelevant stuff between their covers
doesn't mean anything to you but wasted time, energy and
cash.

Most marketing experts only know what's in those college
text books - and I got to tell you for a small business
that's poison. I've read all the text books I have the
advertising degree hanging on the wall. I've got the
master's degree too. And you wanna know what? All that
standard education information is garbage.

See, academics aren't interested in the same things as
entrepreneurs. They don't think the same as us and they
definitely don't know anything about small business. They
know theory and principles that work for the masses. That's
why this is standard education stuff. But standard education
principles yield standard results and often times less when
applied to small businesses.

I don't know about you but I'm not looking for standard
success. Standard success is $30,000 a year and a broken
home for your kids. I think we are all aiming a bit higher,
that's why you're reading this right now and seeking
something more.

In that standard marketing education they talk about the
"Four P's of Marketing" (some say five P's now). The
Five P's are product, price, placement, package, promotion.

For a small business the Five P's are procrastination,
procrastination, procrastination, procrastination,
procrastination.

You need rapid but smart growth - and that's not covered in
a marketing plan or in the "Five P's."

What you need to create is a "Rapid And Smart Growth Plan
Of Attack."

This is a living and breathing one page document that
evolves as you take action and test results.

And it's not just a plan. A plan gets filed away in your
drawer because it's too long and too complicated to do
anything else with.

What I'm talking about is a plan of attack. If you want to
find success you need to ATTACK IT!

I like to use a large easel and a big post it flip chart
pad. I write in red marker so it's ultra obvious and always
carries a sense of urgency.

In this plan of attack you want to make a list of no more
than two or three narrowly defined targets to go after. You
need to solidify your Gravitational Proposition - a unique
offering statement that is irresistible to your target and
pulls them to you with a natural, powerful force.

Your Gravitational Proposition should answer these
questions.
1. What is it you are trying to sell?
2. What HUGE benefit does your customer get from the purchase?
3. How much does it cost?
4. Why proof do you offer/why should I believe you?

Your proposition doesn't have to contain all of these
things but a combination of the ones that puts your offering
in the best light possible.

The next thing on your action plan should be the steps you
will take to attack your prospects and the individual
actions you will take to accomplish those steps.

Cross each one off the list as you finish it and add new
ideas as you come up with them. Only add ideas when you can
add actionable steps to take to implement those ideas.

Create time deadlines for each set of steps to incentivize
yourself to get them done. Even create rewards for
accomplishing the projects. You must block out at least one
day per week where you do nothing but plan and act -
otherwise you are doomed to have slow growth and mediocre
results.

You must change your mindset. You must realize your main job
is marketer not doer or seller or manager. Marketing is the
most important job you can master if you desire success in
large scale.

So forget the marketing plan, the four or five P's and
start creating rapid and smart growth by taking aggressive
action. Remember that you must test and measure all of your
efforts for effectiveness and act accordingly.

Small business marketing:Put Up or Shut Down

noreply@blogger.com (David Newman) — Sat, 8 Jan 2011 17:28:00 -0500

Five things every small business must do to survive this recession
Guest column by Bryan Jennewein

Many small businesses fall into the trap of spending little or nothing during challenging economic times. But there are proven strategies for not only surviving, but also growing during recession. Here are five easy ways to make sure your business comes out ahead.

Understand who your customers truly are
Understanding your customers is easy – just talk to them. Don't have the time? Then use a tool like infoUSA.com's Advanced Customer Cloner. Simply upload a list of your best customers, and it kicks out a list of people just like them – even if your customers are businesses. You can even order a report that describes these best customers for a small fee. It's smart investments like this that help prevent the kinds of costly mistakes of less successful businesses.

You have to spend money to make money
We've all heard the age-old mantra, "you've got to spend money to make money," and yet we continually resist doing it. If you're in business, then people need to know you're in business, which means you have to communicate with not only your current customers, but also potential customers. This communication costs money. Many call it "marketing dollars," while I call it common sense. Committing to spending money is difficult – especially when you don't see consistent returns. When you stop spending money on marketing, you only compound the problem. This vicious cycle will only help your business close its doors for good.

Use your money wisely
Now that you've committed to spending money, do so with a plan and a way to measure success. Do everything you can to understand how many dollars you're making for every dollar you're spending. Try a smart direct mail campaign, with a professionally designed mail piece that will get it the attention it deserves instead of a trip to the garbage can. Make sure you include a unique 800# or offer, so you can record these new customers when they buy. Understanding success is easy - just add up all the sales you made from your campaign, factor in future sales from new customers, and subtract the cost of the campaign itself. Or, for even more cost control, try email marketing. It's a very inexpensive way to reach a lot of people. Typically, your response rate is lower, but because you can reach more people, a lot of times these campaigns see more success than their direct mail counterparts – and you don't even have to pay for the stamp!

Craft your message carefully
Think about these three things when planning your campaign:
Hook them with a great offer or special deal.
Reinforce the value of your product or service.
Issue a call-to-action.

Get their attention, tell them why they need you, and tell them directly and specifically what to do. Your message might be something like "Seasonal Discount – 50% OFF of the best baked goods in town, baked fresh every morning by Mama Louisa herself! Bring this coupon when you stop by our store in the Old Market. Visit us today!" And keep some extra coupons on hand in the store. When a customer uses a coupon, just jot down the amount of the order. At the end of the first month, see how well your campaign did by totaling up all of your new business.
Create customer loyalty
Keep giving your customers what they want, learn from what they don't, and look to them for ideas on what else you might be able to provide. This is the key to marketing smarter: a lifelong customer. It's the customer that you've built an emotional connection to in addition to being merely useful. This customer will come to you first every time. This is perhaps the best investment of your marketing dollars, because you've spent money to acquire them once, and they keep buying time and time again.

Small business marketing: Quickest way to the poor house is...

noreply@blogger.com (David Newman) — Fri, 7 Jan 2011 16:17:00 -0500

This smart marketing tidbit came across my desk from Joan Stewart, aka the Publicity Hound:

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One of the most valuable tips I learned is that the onslaught of emails I'm receiving from business people offering cut-rate prices on their products and services is, for them, the quickest way to the poor house. In fact, raising prices, even in a meltdown economy, is one of the fastest ways to success.

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Why is this so smart? Well, because Joan agree with me on this point. I'm not ashamed to share with you that for 2009, I've just raised my speaking fee. And not by a little - by a lot. Specifically, it's up by 33%. And it wasn't low to start with.

What are YOU doing to raise yourself above the competition - both literally with pricing and in other more customer-centric ways?

Small business marketing: lessons from Home Depot

noreply@blogger.com (David Newman) — Thu, 6 Jan 2011 12:27:00 -0500

A while back there was a Home Depot television commercial that brilliantly demonstrated their understanding of why their customers purchase several of their products.

It went something like this… A man is standing in the tool department holding a drill while his wife looks on dubiously. He obviously wants to buy it, but apparently expects some resistance from his wife so in an effort to convince her says, "Don't think of this as a drill, think of this as your new book shelves."

Well, obviously his ploy worked because in the next scene the same couple is standing in front of the table saws. He smiles at his wife, points to one and says, "And think of this as your new deck!" The final scene shows the same couple getting ready to purchase a shop vac. Only this time the woman speaks up and says, "And I can think of this as my clean garage!" Not only do they do a stellar job of articulating their products' benefits but they do so without mentioning one feature!

So, the next time you're tempted to itemize your products' or services' nifty features take a deep breath and stop. Instead, articulate how those features translate into customer benefits.

Small business marketing: Happy New Year!

noreply@blogger.com (David Newman) — Sat, 1 Jan 2011 08:45:00 -0500

Youth is when you're allowed to stay up late on New Year's Eve. Middle age is when you're forced to.
~Bill Vaughan

An optimist stays up until midnight to see the new year in. A pessimist stays up to make sure the old year leaves.
~Bill Vaughan

Many people look forward to the new year for a new start on old habits.
~Author Unknown

A New Year's resolution is something that goes in one year and out the other.
~Author Unknown

Be always at war with your vices, at peace with your neighbors, and let each new year find you a better man.
~Benjamin Franklin

Eight Steps to Attracting New Business in a Lagging Economy

noreply@blogger.com (David Newman) — Mon, 6 Oct 2008 17:29:00 -0400

How to get more referrals, attract new clients and decrease costs during a recession

Guest column by Joanne Black

The economy is lagging and dragging. We've felt the effects in the United States. Now we're seeing global implications. So, how do you tackle economic uncertainty?

Cut advertising, travel, training, marketing and discretionary expense line items? Cut purchasing? Ouch! Then the pipeline starts to dry up and the anxiety level goes through the roof. Many people think that since there's nothing they can do, they should just do nothing. But "nothing" is futile thinking.

What If You Could Reach Your Market Without Incurring Any Hard Costs?

The only budget you need to worry about is your simply your time—your time to ask for referrals. You know about referrals. When a qualified prospect is referred to you, you get a new client typically 70-90% of the time. Additionally, you are pre-sold, and your selling time decreases while your credibility increases.

There is no other business-development process that can claim these results. And, in this economy, results are the only thing that matters. Achieve the results you need simply by implementing the following eight "killer" strategies.

Eight "Killer Steps" to Attracting New Business in a Lagging Economy

1. Broaden Your Perspective.
What business are you in? Redefine and reinvent yourself. Determine how you can create a leap in demand for your products and services. Build new alliances and consider alternate distribution channels. Don't go solo. It's important to assemble a group of advisors and get their input and creative ideas, and include people who have differing points of view from you.

2. Be Nimble and Innovative.
You'll never have all the facts. Go ahead; make quick decisions. Be fearless and make those tough choices. Create new uses for your products. Why not a new business model?

3. Dazzle Your Current Customers.
Your current customers need care and feeding. Don't ignore them at the expense of new business because they are your best source for new business.

4. Prioritize Wisely.
The most important activity for any salesperson is to do what's "closest to cash" the first thing every single day—whether it's following up with a prospect, writing a proposal or closing a deal.

5. Become an Expert.
Companies hire experts because they can't afford to make mistakes. Position your company as the expert with a specific product or in a specific market niche. Become an expert and people will be more likely to refer you.

6. Stay Connected.
If you want to get more referrals you have to network like crazy. Attend a minimum of one event a week. You never know who you will meet and what you will learn. Never let your network go down. Networking is an essential referral marketing activity. So go make connections and build your business. Talk to people and find out how you can help them. How is their business doing? Are they impacted by the lagging economy? How? Don't e-mail—call. You make connections by talking to people and by spending the time having a robust conversation.

7. Don't Cut Prices. Increase Value.
There's a lot of chatter about cutting prices in a lagging economy. Many small business owners think businesses are cutting back, so prospects don't have money for their projects. But, by cutting prices, you're cutting your profits even further. Instead, consider how to "get in and get started." Divide your offering into smaller chunks, get results and create traction. Or, give more value. When you offer high-value products and services, people will refer you and you will get more sales, even in a recession economy.

8. Commit to Building Your Referral Business.
Referrals are always terrific, but they mean even more in a lagging economy. Don't let the lagging economy trickle down on you. Take charge and make your phone ring again! Let your prospects know how much you care about them. Tell and show just how much you appreciate their business. Inform them that you'd like to help people just like them. And, don't forget to thank your prospects and clients for their referral.

Follow these tips and you will get more referrals. You will attract new business. You will get more clients. You will accelerate your sales. And, you will achieve higher results without increasing your cost of sales.

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America's leading authority on referral selling and founder of No More Cold Calling, Joanne Black helps salespeople, sales teams, and business owners get more referrals and attract more business fast without increasing costs.

Small business marketing: Thoughts on happiness and joy in business...

noreply@blogger.com (David Newman) — Fri, 3 Oct 2008 08:20:00 -0400

Some thoughts on happiness and joy in business...

There is no happiness except in the realization that we have accomplished something.
-- Henry Ford

Happiness lies in the joy of achievement and the thrill of creative effort.
-- Franklin D. Roosevelt

Things won are done, joy's soul lies in the doing.
-- William Shakespeare

Enjoy your Friday.

David Newman

Small business marketing speaker

Small business marketing - the power of trust

noreply@blogger.com (David Newman) — Sun, 28 Sep 2008 06:47:00 -0400

As contagion of sickness makes sickness, contagion of trust can make trust.
-- Marianne Moore

Trust is one of the most important issues in business today. It's also one of the most critical hard dollar issues: it's now been proven that high trust among people in an organization directly correlates to high profitability.

How do you enhance trust in your client relationships?

Bad news: It's easier said than done.

The following 4 things can have a dramatic impact upon your bottom line as an independent professional and small business owner:

1. Openness - a willingness to listen to others about issues, and encouraging others to speak up; differences of opinion are sought and valued.

2. Straightforwardness - saying what needs to be said in a non-threatening and non- judgmental manner; conflicts are faced, not avoided.

3. Acceptance - appreciating others who are different in behavioral styles, approaches, and appearances. This is the one element that sets the stage for the success of all other elements of trust.

4. Reliability - will follow through on or do what was said or promised would be done.

Question: What's your trust quotient? What have you done recently to increase it? What are you willing to commit to doing, both for yourself and your clients, to make sure the
trust factor is addressed in your work?

Marketing strategy #2 for consultants, speakers, coaches...

noreply@blogger.com (David Newman) — Fri, 5 Sep 2008 06:33:00 -0400

This morning, I'm delivering my program called "Live Ammo Marketing Lab" for the Consultant's Forum, a group run by my friend and super consultant, Steve Horner.

Quite coincidentally, this morning's IMC (Institute of Management Consultants) Tip of the Day was this...
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Q: Some clients seem to value subject matter expertise over organizational development or other consulting process skills. Is this always the case?

A: Not to oversimplify your issue, but you could divide consultants into subject matter or process experts. Subject matter experts know about an industry, its products, history, technology, structure, etc. Process consultants rely on the subject matter expertise of client staff but deliver process improvement in marketing, leadership, human resources, financial analysis, or other disciplines related to the operation of internal processes.

Clients are lucky (and so are you) if they get someone (like you) who knows both subject matter and process. However, most of the time, they are looking for one or the other. You may be better served to decide which kind of consultant you are and go with that strength. Find good partners who can complement your preferred focus.
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Another good example of "Do It!" Marketing Strategy #2 that I share with independent professionals, consultants, speakers, coaches, and service business owners - DECIDE who you are!

-- D.

_____________________________
David Newman :: Tel. 610.716.5984
http://www.unconsulting.com
Could TOO MUCH marketing be killing your small business?

Want to do LESS marketing and get MORE results? Then visit...
http://www.MarketingDetox.com

Small business marketing: the power of doubt

noreply@blogger.com (David Newman) — Fri, 29 Aug 2008 06:42:00 -0400

I respect faith, but doubt is what gets you an education.
-- Wilson Mizner

The faculty of doubting and questioning is the essential preliminary of all improvement and discovery.
-- Albert Pike

Doubt is nothing more than the fertile ground in which brilliant questions can grow. (My definition of a brilliant question: Any question, no matter how basic, from which a brilliant insight can be derived.)

With that definition, even the simplest of questions could be categorized as brilliant.

Here is a starter set, to fuel your brilliance:

1. What are you doing well?

2. What can you do better?

3. What is the value of your current attitude?

4. What are three of your greatest strengths?

5. What are you most excited about now?

6. What are you looking forward to?

7. What would be your ideal career - if you could do anything?

8. How could you bring some aspects of that ideal job into your current work?

9. What's one thing that you could do to give yourself more peace financially?

10. What is your life really about?

11. If you had to guess your life purpose (from looking at your life to date), what would it

be?

12. What do you want MORE of in your work? (Make a list)

13. What do you want LESS of in your work? (Make a list)

14. What are three things you are doing regularly that don't serve or support you?

15. What would you like most to be acknow-ledged for so far in your life?

16. If you were your own coach or mentor, what advice would you give yourself right now?

Small business marketing: the power of a bargain

noreply@blogger.com (David Newman) — Fri, 15 Aug 2008 06:25:00 -0400

Necessity never made a good bargain.
-- Benjamin Franklin

Benjamin Franklin's method of persuading others to his point of view took patience and endurance. Here are some of Franklin's bargaining tips:

1. Be clear about exactly what you're after.
2. Do your homework so that you are fully prepared to discuss every aspect and respond to every question and comment.
3. Be persistent. Don't expect to "win" the first time. Your primary job is just to start the other person thinking.
4. Make friends with the person you are bargaining with. Put your bargain in terms of his or her needs, advan-tages, benefits, and outcomes.
5. Keep your sense of humor.

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Could TOO MUCH marketing be killing your small business?

Want to do LESS marketing and get MORE results? Then visit...
http://www.MarketingDetox.com